It's amazing what one small choice can do.
In February of this year, I decided enough was enough: I was not going to continue to "buy in" to the current music streaming landscape by hosting my music on big tech platforms like Amazon, Apple, Google, Spotify, and Meta. This was fueled by a political motivation, a need to do something to protest big tech's collusion with the current fascistic project of the US government, its murder and caging of migrants and citizens alike, its use of corporate-funded technologies to surveil and terrorize the population. Taking my music off these platforms — taking my artistic work and data out of their hands — seemed like the least I could do.
I made a post announcing this on Instagram, then worked on exporting and deleting all my content and other posts from Meta's platforms. I updated by digital distribution with CD Baby to cancel my tracks on the big streamers. I started migrating my videos to PeerTube, a federated alternative to Google-owned YouTube. Ironically, my Instagram post took off, getting shared and reposted, racking up over 6k likes at this time of this writing — the highest performing Instagram post I've ever made. It also happens to be my last. Of course, the post has attracted the trolls and the bots, folks chiming in to declare that they never cared about my music anyway and now I will die alone, miserable in anonymity (lol, okay!), as well as those taking my boycott of big tech as a personal attack they need to fight back against (lmao!).
However, the post has also attracted fellow musicians and music lovers who are feeling similarly, folks who are looking for alternatives and trying to organize around this issue. I've connected with people who are seeking collaboration and community building, and have started plotting new ways to help channel this energy into hopeful, productive artistic futures. More about that soon.
Most surprisingly for me, this decision has triggered a new sense of motivation towards my own music career. I don't think I'm alone in feeling burnt out and overwhelmed by trying to stay on the hamster wheel — constant social media posts, digital releases, and promotional content, all for an amorphous, often anonymous audience, competing against uncountable other pieces of digital content for likes and views. In a lot of ways, I gave up on social media promotion some time ago, focusing instead on local live gigs and creative collaboration with fellow artists in Vermont, working a part-time day job to make ends meet. Some folks on my Instagram pointed out that if I was making money off digital platforms, I probably wouldn't be leaving, as if this was some sort of "gotcha!" proving how unsuccessful and meaningless my art already is.
I have no shame about owning it — I have never made consistent money from streaming platforms or big tech hosting. The music industry has been a losing game for some time now. I have little left to lose by pulling my art from these platforms, which I know is not the case for some artists who have found success specifically in the streaming ecosystem. For me, the most consistent money I have made from my music is in live performance, so that's what I've tended to put my energy into. I'm disabled, so work gigging and touring can't really be consistent for me. I fill in with part-time jobs where I live, mostly with small local businesses or in public service roles. I have always been too disabled to work full time. I am very low income. Let me make that clear.
But I don't think that means my work is meaningless, or that I should just accept I'm a failure. It only gives me cause and motivation to dream up new systems that aren't so dependent on competition and capitalist hustle. I have no interest in fighting for success in an industry built on the most deeply harmful hegemonic lines, an industry which has abused, violated, and stolen from women, people of color, and queer folks since its inception. If anything, pulling my art from these platforms has re-energized me. I'm excited to research federated, open-source platforms to host my art. I'm excited to organize with fellow musicians to build new networks. I'm excited to join artist-owned cooperatives. I'm excited to build up my own website, my online "home" so to speak, as a place where I can call the shots about my own work and share directly with the people who have demonstrated the most care towards me as both a person and an artist.
I'm ready to lean into messiness, imperfection, and my own organic humanity in an era where AI-tools claim to deliver "perfection," at great expense to communities and environments.
There is a lot more to share about this journey — the philosophy behind it, the practical steps I'm taking along the way, my hopes and fears for the future. I'll be posting regular writing here on my website, sharing to my Mastodon feed, and working on developing other nodes of connection.
For now, I'm compiling more details about the specific actions I've taken and the platforms I'm exploring for anyone who is interested in following along. This can be broken down into three general processes: federation, consolidation, and cooperation. I'll be diving into each of these specific processes in future blog posts.
The project I'm outlining here isn't really a music-making project. It's also not a money-making project. I'm not offering tips to hack capitalism or “thrive” under our current conditions. Trust me, if I knew a hack for thriving financially – for myself and for my peers, my community members who are facing violent annihilation as we speak – I wouldn't be fighting like hell to survive. But I am fighting, and that's what I intend this to be for myself: a project of survival.
It's a political project, one of artistic justice and digital literacy. I understand how overwhelming it can feel to educate ourselves about the workings of digital systems which were built by a small group of niche experts and then weaponized against us. Unfortunately, I fear it's become essential. We must resist the acceleration of techno-fascism to give ourselves the best chance of digital survival. The internet is one of the most powerful revolutionary tools ever created. If we don't act radically NOW, we could lose it forever.
Fortunately for us, internet technology has always been open-source and accessible for anyone to learn about, build on, and adapt. We all need to resist the massive literacy and educational crisis by educating ourselves, and then connecting with others to make open-source protocols more accessible, more intuitive, and more mainstream. We don't need to continue chasing dream platforms, holding out for the next big space that will "transform the internet". We need to understand the protocols on which internet technology is based, so that we can use the technology effectively for our projects – projects of justice, resistance, solidarity, and creative power – even when techno-fascist regimes try to shut us down.
Here are some of the sources that are already informing my work or that I'm currently reading to better educate myself:
Up-to-the-minute Tech Journalism :
(ESSENTIAL READING FOR ANYONE WHO USES THE INTERNET)
1. 404 Media : https://www.404media.co
2. Usermag.co : https://www.usermag.co
- Taylor Lorenz's video series on efforts to Repeal Section 230 and Online “Safety Laws” is ESSENTIAL. This is an emergency situation!!!
3. Blood in the Machine : https://www.bloodinthemachine.com
Books
Resisting Borders and Technologies of Violence. Edited by Mizue Aizeki, Matt Mahmoudi, and Coline Schupfer. https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2094-resisting-borders-and-technologies-of-violence
The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation. By Cory Doctorow. https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con
- Digital Webinar: https://archive.org/details/the-internet-con
Internet for the People: The Fight for Our Digital Future. By Ben Tarnoff. https://www.versobooks.com/products/2674-internet-for-the-people
Platform Capitalism. By Nick Srnicek.
- PDF available here: http://pombo.free.fr/srnicek2017.pdf
Matrix Server
I've started a “Musicians Against Big Tech” Matrix server to connect with others around this issue and keep the conversation going. Matrix is an open-source messaging protocol accessed through the secure Element app. Think of it like a good old-fashioned chatroom! It does require downloading a new messaging app, but that's about all the tech know-how you need in order to hop on.
If you would like to join the server, please send a message through my contact form here. Give me a brief introduction as to why you're interested in building community around this issue, and I'll send you an invite link!
Stay tuned for more coming soon!
